Amgen highlighted its increasingly global reach on the second quarter earnings call with Bob Bradway, chairman and CEO, in particular citing a recent deal with Daiichi Sankyo in Japan as key for biosimilar sales.
“With an expected 80 new launches across countries and products this year, and the recent re-acquisition of rights to many of our existing products outside the United States, we’re meaningfully expanding our global footprint,” Bradway told analysts on the July 27 earnings call.
“To that end, we recently announced that we had partnered with Daiichi Sankyo in an effort to bring Amgen biosimilars to the Japanese market.”
That deal will see Daiichi Sankyo market and sell 9 products, including approved and late-stage development biosimilars of adalimumab, bevacizumab (Avastin) and trastuzumab (Herceptin), though no mention was made at the time of the deal or on the call about rituximab (Rituxan), cetuximab (Erbitux) and infliximab (Remicade) that are part of Amgen’s biosimilar efforts.
Amgen has extensive dealings with Japanese firms and has relied on a mixture of research and sales and marketing help, as well as its own efforts. In June, for example, Osaka-based Takeda Pharmaceutical returned Japan rights for Amgen oncology candidates fulranumab (AMG-403) and trebananib (AMG-386).
But the California biotech does not break out the market by sales, with Tony Hooper, head of Global Commercial Operations, instead giving an overall figure outside the U.S. as international sales that rose 3% in the second quarter, “or 5% year over year, excluding the impact of foreign exchange. Europe was a strong contributor, with 11% unit growth.”
By EJ Lane
Source: Fierce Pharma
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